Madhyamik examinees from English and Hindi-medium schools complained they had mistakenly answered wrong questions in Wednesday’s physical science paper because of “lack of instruction”.

The candidates blamed the “mistake” on the state secondary education board’s failure to identify which set of questions conformed to the new syllabus and which set to the old.

Board president Mamata Ray said the examinees can can lodge complaints through their school heads.

“The complaints will be placed before the examination committee, which will decide whether the students who had ‘mistakenly’ answered wrong questions should be compensated,” she added.

There was a similar complaint about Tuesday’s life science paper, which also allegedly contained some questions from outside the syllabus.

The physical science paper comprised four sets of questions pinned together. The first and third sets were in Bengali, with the words “New Syllabus” and “Old Syllabus” written on top, respectively.

The second and the fourth sets were the English version, but the board did not identify which followed the old curriculum and which the new.

An official said the second set was under the new syllabus and the fourth set under the old.

A student from an English-medium school in Kidderpore said: “I studied the old syllabus, but mistakenly answered the questions in the first set of the English version as there were no instructions on top. Some of the questions were difficult but I did not realise they were from the new syllabus. After the exam, some of my friends told me that there was another set of questions in English, meant for us.”

The problem was faced by students from Hindi-medium schools, too, as they follow the questions in English.

“The board does not publish any Hindi version of the questions,” said an official.

Board president Ray said from the next exam, invigilators at every centre will be asked to explain to the students which set of questions they are supposed to answer.

“There should not be any confusion among the examinees. The invigilators have been asked to ensure that,” said Ray.